Lottie has come to visit your campground, but she’s here on a mission. Shee wants to collect all of the rare bats. She needs your help to collect as many as possible. Lottie’s Gothic Rose Festival runs from February 1 through February 9, so you don’t have a whole lot of time to get through the entire event. Here’s everything you need to know about how to catch rare bats and earn all of Lottie’s special furniture.

The basics

The goal is to catch as many rare bats as possible. You’ll earn rewards for catching a certain number for each task. For example, once you’ve completed the first Gothic Bat task, you’ll get Flower Food (which you can use to speed up the growing time for your other flowers!).

To catch a rare bat in your garden, plant seasonal rose seeds. You can buy gothic purple rose seeds from Lloid and you can earn purple and red rose seeds by completing requests.

You’ll also earn rewards for sharing rare bats with friends. Visit a friend’s garden and leave a bat on a flower (hint: It doesn’t have to be a rose) for your friend. Most of the time (but not every time), Lottie will reward you with a rose seed for sharing.

You’ll also earn red and purple rose seeds from completing tasks around the campground. So, be sure to continue your regular camper quests to earn those extra seeds.

The event takes place in two waves with four different types of flowers and bats and four different runs of quests.

Wave 1: Gothic and golden gothic bats

The first wave of Lottie’s Gothic Rose Festival starts on February 1 and runs until the event ends on February 9. During this time, you’ll be able to collect rare gothic and golden gothic bats from gothic red and gothic purple roses.

Wave 2: Ruby and diamond gothic bats

The second wave of Lottie’s Gothic Rose Festival starts on February 5 and runs until the event ends on February 9. You have less time to collect rare ruby and diamond gothic bats from gothic fusion roses, which only become available when the second wave starts.

Important note: You can’t keep rare bats or seasonal flowers after the event ends, so don’t try to stock up. Share bats with friends as often as possible and trade stocks of roses to Lloid in exchange for flower beds and crafting materials. Don’t hold onto anything.

Plant and harvest regularly

Rare bats spawn randomly on roses. If you plant 10 purple roses, for example, you might only spawn five or six bats.

Bats will only be attracted to a freshly bloomed flower. It won’t leave once bloomed until you’ve caught or failed to catch it, but new bats will not spawn on an existing flower.

If you don’t see a bat on a new bloom, you’ll never see one. Harvest it and plant a new one. There is almost never a reason to leave a rose unharvested in your garden. Almost never…

Leave a couple of un-harvested flowers behind so your friends can share bats with you — maybe just five. If you harvest everything, your garden won’t have any sharable blooms for three hours.

You get more chances to catch rare bats when your friends share them with you and your friends earn additional seeds. Everybody wins!

You’ll know whether a bat in your garden is from a friend by checking the Visitors section of your Friend list. If Penny left you a bat, it’ll appear under her name.

Water your plants

Note: I don’t have official information about the length of time it will take fusion roses to grow. I’m only speculating here, but I’d wager that they take more than three hours to grow. That means they’ll need to be watered once before they bloom.

The first rare roses on Lottie’s Gothic Rose Festival only take three hours to grow, so watering will not be an issue for the first wave of the event. However, it is likely that gothic fusion roses will take more than three hours, and therefore will need watering.

Just like the standard planting and harvesting cycle, you have to make sure your flowers don’t wilt while they’re in the ground. If that happens, the growth progress stops and doesn’t start up again until you water them again.

For standard gardening tips, I’d tell you to leave a few flowers un-watered so that your friends can earn some Friend Powder by watering your garden for you, but not during this event.

Water all of your plants and keep them watered whenever they need it. This will ensure that your flowers won’t wilt because you accidentally forgot about them and no one has stopped by to water them for you.

Stop hoarding your bats, give them away!

Share your rare bats with friends. Hoarding them does you no good. Give them to friends in order to earn more seeds and friend powder from Lottie. You’ll get furniture from Lottie for the bats you catch, but you don’t have to keep them in your inventory.

Your progress is tallied in the Event section of your garden. When you give bats away, the total doesn’t drop. They also disappear from your inventory after the event ends, so keeping them to yourself doesn’t do anyone any good.

On average, Lottie will give you one rose seed for each bat you share. This isn’t exact, however. Sometimes, she doesn’t give you any.

You can share rare bats with friends on their non-rare plants. Help friends out that haven’t planted any seasonal flowers yet!

Set a timer to check your garden

Though you should be able to get all of Lottie’s furniture fairly easily with regular gameplay, you don’t want to miss out on any opportunities to water and harvest your plants in a timely manner. To make sure you’re always on the right track, set a timer for every three hours. You don’t have to run through the entire campground’s requests, but you can make sure to collect those flowers and replant as soon as possible.

Don’t ask for Lloid’s help until the second wave hits

Asking for Lloid’s help will guarantee that you’ll catch a bat from the flower, but it comes at a hefty price (10 Leaf Tickets for each bat). Based on the last garden event, you won’t need his help catching the bats from the first wave — the gothic and golden gothic bats. There’s plenty of time for them.

The second wave, however, is much shorter and you’re still working with seeds from the first wave. So, you’re not getting as many fusion seeds as you need, added to the fact that ruby and diamond bats spawn and are catchable at a much lower rate.

Save your Leaf Tickets for Wave 2. I ended up spending about 70 Leaf Tickets during the second wave in order to make sure I completed the event tasks and received the final reward.

Plant a garden full of red or purple roses before bed

Note: I don’t have official information about the length of time it will take fusion roses to grow. I’m only speculating here, but I’d wager that they take more than three hours to grow. That means they’ll need to be watered once before they bloom.

If you recall the garden rules, plants will wilt if they are still growing and haven’t been watered after three hours. That means fusion roses will wilt before their growth process is complete if you don’t water them once.

Red and purple roses, on the other hand, complete their bloom at three hours. So if you plant a garden full of red or purple roses before you go to bed, you’ll wake up in the morning with a fresh set of flowers and rare bats.

Planting flowers that bloom overnight will also help your friends that live across the globe. While you’re sleeping, they’re playing, and they’d love to drop off a bat or two in your garden.

Hoard your roses!

You can trade harvested roses to Lloid for flower boxes and crafting materials. I personally recommend trading as many red roses as possible for essence as many times as you can, since those items are hard to come by in the game and are expensive to replace with Leaf Tickets if you want to craft something when you don’t have enough materials.

Previous garden event: Rover’s Garden Safari

We’re including information about previous garden events so you can catch up on what’s gone on and study up on what to expect in the future.

Wave 1: Diamond and Topaz butterflies

The first wave of Rover’s Garden Safari event starts on January 11 and runs all the way through until January 21, when the event ends. During this time, you’ll be collecting rare Diamond and Topaz butterflies by planting blue and red dahlia seeds.

Wave 2: Winter and Gold butterflies

The second wave of Rover’s Garden Safari event starts on January 16 and runs until the event ends on January 21. You have less time to collect rare Winter and Gold butterflies from white dahlias, which only become available when the second wave starts.

Important note: You can’t keep rare butterflies or seasonal flowers after the event ends, so don’t try to stock up. Share butterflies with friends as often as possible and trade stocks of dahlias to Lloid in exchange for flower beds and crafting materials. Don’t hold onto anything.

Any questions?

Do you have any more questions about Rover’s Garden Safari event in Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp? Put them in the comments and I’ll help you out.